Industrial applications for potassium include soaps, detergents, gold mining, dyes, glass production, gunpowder, and batteries. Potassium also plays a vital role in our bodies. It is used in muscle contraction, fluid and pH balance, bone health, and helps to prevent kidney stones.

The name is derived from the english word potash. The chemical symbol K comes from kalium, the Mediaeval Latin for potash, which may have derived from the arabic word qali, meaning alkali. Potassium is a soft, silvery-white metal, member of the alkali group of the periodic chart.

Although people sometimes confuse them with one another, the two aren’t the same. Potassium is a mineral and not a vitamin, and the two nutrients function differently in the human body. Still, they both contribute to better bone and heart health, among other benefits.

Potassium (K) is an alkali metal, placed under sodium and over rubidium, and is the first element of period 4. It is soft enough to be cut with a knife and it is the second least dense element. Potassium has a relatively low melting point; it will melt just by putting it under a small open flame.

Answer Expert Verified. The answer is (4) Sc. The metallic properties has the rule that from left to right, the metallic property is from high to low.

Chlorine is right below fluorine, making it the element with the fifth highest metallic character. This leaves fluorine as the last element, meaning it has the lowest metallic character.

Radon

Helium is all over the universe—it’s the second-most abundant element. But on Earth, it’s much less common. It can’t be artificially produced and must be extracted from natural gas wells. Over time, helium forms from the decaying uranium and is trapped beneath Earth’s surface, but it takes its sweet time.

Helium is the only element on the planet that is a completely nonrenewable resource. On Earth, helium is generated deep underground through the natural radioactive decay of elements such as uranium and thorium.

As Helium is such, it won’t bond or interact with Hydrogen in any real way. What you’ll end up with is a balloon which over time becomes “layered”, with lighter hydrogen occupying the upper portion of the balloon, and heavier Helium settling more-or-less around the bottom.

Hydrogen and helium are the most commonly used lift gases. Although helium is twice as heavy as (diatomic) hydrogen, they are both significantly lighter than air, making this difference negligible. Thus helium is almost twice as dense as hydrogen.

Because helium is lighter that air, a helium balloon rises, just as an air bubble rises in more dense water. Hydrogen is another gas lighter than air; it’s even lighter than helium.

Furthermore, hydrogen is approximately 2.5 times less expensive than helium.

Helium is often found underground among other natural gases, but to be used, it must be separated out into its pure form, Segre said. That’s an expensive process, and it’s also costly to store, because of its light weight. Natural gas companies often do not do this because of the cost, Segre said.

Explanations: Helium is an “inert” gas and does not react in the presences of heat or air. This is why the balloon filled with helium does nothing more than pop. This reaction is highly exothermic, producing the prodigious explosion.

Even small amounts of liquid hydrogen can be explosive when combined with air, and only a small amount of energy is required to ignite it. Both its explosiveness and the extremely low temperatures involved make handling it safely a challenge.

Breathing in pure helium can cause death by asphyxiation in just minutes. Inhaling helium from a pressurized tank can also cause a gas or air embolism, which is a bubble that becomes trapped in a blood vessel, blocking it. Finally, the helium can also enter your lungs with enough force to cause your lungs to rupture.

Helium is not a flammable or explosive gas. Helium is an inert gas, which means that it is very stable and not very reactive. A balloon filled with helium will not explode.